# Companies Here are some company-specific notes. The following notes came from dozens of phone calls with current and former Dropbox employees, Blind, Levels, and other sources. Note that I chose Dropbox, and am strongly happy with my choice, so I'm obviously biased. But I made sure to keep as objective as possible. I will slowly fill this page with other companies I interviewed for. Feel free to a submit a PR for yours. **IMPORTANT**: I am **NOT legally/officially representing** any of these companies or claiming it's valid. It's simply an **aggregation** of what I've seen in **public forums and asking around**. It is meant to give you a rough sketch and opinion of culture within these companies. All information obtained here was **non-proprietary** gathered **BEFORE** employment at these companies, and did not come from an official company source. ## Dropbox #### Pros * **WLB**: Dropbox is known for its amazing WLB. Most teams have a very relaxed culture. There are few deadlines and low expectations compared to most startups and even other big tech. * **Cross-Team:** If you so choose, you are empowered to implement new concepts, frameworks, refactors, even though they are not directly the responsibility of your team. As long as other engineers agree with your approach, management won't block you from making such changes. Additionally, if you want to switch teams, it's pretty trivial * **Little Competition/Politics**: At least as an IC, there is very little politics and competition for positions. * **Great Comp**: You can expect $300-$500k as a senior engineer at Dropbox and up to $1M as Staff and above. For reference, I stagnated at $180k in startup world, and now make over double that. See [Levels](https://www.levels.fyi/company/Dropbox/salaries/Software-Engineer/) for more details. Comp is fairly accurate from my personal experience. Comp is very much on par with FAANGs. * **Great engineering culture**: They highly value code quality, collaboration, and keeping up to date with community standards * **Modern Tech Stack**: React, Redux, Typescript on the FE (and I believe Python, Go, and Rust on the BE). Especially in frontend, Dropbox keeps up with the latest community standards * **Friendly**: Compared to other companies I interviewed with, Dropbox has very friendly folks. Everyone I spoke to (biased and unbiased) noted the collaborative culture. Colleagues will hang with you outside of work * **Great for Parents**: Dropbox gives great partenal leave, $25k in adoption assistance, $5k in babysitter credits, fertility assitance. And of course the great WLB. **Cons** **As I'm working at Dropbox now will omit these. But clearly the pros outweigh them ;)** #### Verdict Obviously, I chose Dropbox as my employer, so I'm biased. But I'd say the pros definitely outweight the cons. As someone who in interested in frontend tech infrastructure, this is a great environment to work. #### Perks Some of the perks that stood out * The health care is more or less standard across tech companies. Nothing too special. Anthem PPO 250 or HDPD 2800 ($1400 contributions) * $6k 401k match * $7k to spend on whatever “wellness” you want (gym, desk, coffeemaker, you name it) * 20 vacation days, 11 holiday, 14 Fridays off (gotta confirm how this works) * $25k per child adoption support * 4 volunteer days * $2k gift match to nonprofits) * Free Dropbox Basic for friends * Nominate a Non Profit for a Dropbox business account #### Remote Work Dropbox is “virtual first”. You don’t have an assigned office. You can work from anywhere in the US (note it does affect your salary based on city). And I think a few months outside the country (they were vague). There is a list of like 10 countries you can work from permanently, but expect much less $ Dropbox has “Studios” where you can work out of. But they’re nowhere near as nice as pre-COVID offices with free 3 star Michelin food. You may cowork out of studios, or meet with your team occasionally. Dropbox has a range of salary bands adjusted for location. If you relocate somewhere permanently, then eventually they'll reassign your salary band accordingly. You may work anywher in the US, as there are no required in person meetings. Additionally, Dropbox has a list of approved locations in which the company is registered as an employer. This includes: * Australia * Canada * France * Germany * Ireland * Israel * Japan * Netherlands * Singapore * Sweden * US * UK You are allowed to take short/medium term trips working from elsewhere in the world! Exactly how long you can spend somewhere before you change your residency is probably the fuzzy part. I've gotten various info that the remote work can range 1-3 mo. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://www.feinfra.com/interviewing-for-fe/companies.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.